Preparing for a Job Interview

Candidates for positions need to be as prepared as possible for each interview session. Interviewers ask questions that determine the candidate’s qualifications. The successful candidate needs to answer the questions in a way that demonstrates their expertise. These statements may seem obvious, but keeping them in mind can illustrate effective ways to prepare for your interview. Putting yourself into the interview’s position and trying to determine what questions will be asked can enhance your preparation.

A review of each statement on the job description will allow you to identify the qualifications. This will give you an opportunity to prepare examples of how you meet the requirements and what you can offer. Once you have identified the qualifications, you can develop questions that might be asked and also practice answers to those questions.

Even if the interviewer doesn’t ask questions that lead to your prepared answers, look for an opportunity. Most interviewers will give you an opportunity to ask questions or share additional information. At this point, you can speak about your experience and expertise related to something on the job description that the interviewer didn’t cover.

The Job Description

Most job descriptions list three types of qualifications. Generally, the largest component lists the knowledge a candidate will need. Then there will also be a listing of skills and behaviors needed for the job. Example skills might be the ability to lift 35 pounds or collate and distribute handouts. Skills describe activities the hiring manager wants an applicant to be able to do.

Behaviors, also known as emotional intelligence, show how you will do your job. How you carry out your work and how you interact with others. Interviewers want to know if you will fit into their culture, and whether you will augment or enhance it.

Basically the hiring team is looking for two things:

• Can you do the job? That is, do you have the knowledge and skills to do the work?
• Do you have the emotional intelligence or behaviors that the organization is looking for in this role? The same organization generally will want different behaviors for different roles. Most often, the behaviors a good sales person needs are not the same behaviors a good engineer would display.

During a behavioral interview, the interviewer wants to learn about how you do things. During this type of interview, or segment of an interview, the focus is on how you perform your work.

Example Job Description

Position: File Clerk

Filing and pulling charts, going through papers, stocking, general helping around with the office. Some phone answering.

Need someone who is dependable, pleasant manner, self motivated, presentable and can multi task.

Interview Prep

Deconstruct the job description, identify each requirement, and construct questions related to each. This will give you an idea of the kind of questions the interviewer might ask. Prepare answers to these questions and you will be that much further ahead.

In reviewing the job description, you can identify the needed knowledge and skills and also the needed behaviors.

Knowledge and Skills:
Filing
Pulling Charts
Stocking Supplies
Answering Phones

Behaviors:
Dependable
Pleasant Manner
Self motivated
Multi tasker

In preparing for an interview, develop both the questions you think might be asked and also prepare answers. It is important to be aware that the interviewer may not ask any of these questions. However, in answering the questions that the interviewer does ask, keep the job requirements in mind. Respond to the questions and, where it makes sense, integrate the examples of how you have successfully done something similar to what is being asked.

You can practice by looking at job posting for jobs in your area of expertise. Identify the knowledge, skills and behaviors. Then develop questions and potential responses.

Behavioral Interviews

Some interviewers will ask you “past performance questions.” These questions provide the interviewer with information about how you carried out your job responsibilities previously. Research has shown that if what a person does is successful, they will do things the same way in the future.

During this type of interview, the interviewer will ask you to recount a time when you did something similar to what they will need you to do on the job. The interviewer will be focused on how you did your job.

Prep for a Behavioral Interview

• Review the behaviors listed in job posting
• Keep in mind experiences from within the last year to 18 months which show you demonstrating the desired behavior
  • Think about what you did, said, thought and felt during that time
• In responding to questions, DO NOT talk about what other people did. The interviewer is interested in what you did. You can acknowledge that others were involved with a statement like “there were many people involved in this activity, but here is what I did”
• You will likely be asked to talk about what you:
  • Did
  • Said
  • Thought
  • Felt
• Do NOT talk about what you usually do. They want you to remember what you did in that specific situation. They want to hear specifically about that time and place
• Pick something you remember well. They will ask for details about what you did, said, thought, and felt during that specific experience

“While job interviewing may not come naturally to everyone, the right preparation can make the difference between landing on your feet and hitting the street. Still, even the most experienced professionals often under-perform by overemphasizing their career progression and chronology or projecting only what they know, rather than focusing on the impact that their leadership has had on the organizations they’ve worked for and the lessons they’ve learned over time.

Today, the more senior the position, the more crucial “soft” skills are. Thus, there will be a high degree of probing throughout the evaluation process to gauge your emotional intelligence and social styles — characteristics that help distinguish a good manager from a true leader.

At this level, the most commonly used interview technique is known as behavioral competency. This type of interview focuses not only on your self-awareness but also on what is known as your learning agility — the ability to apply what you’ve learned through past adversity to overcome obstacles in the future.”

How to Master the Art of Executive Interviewing; by Tierney Remick

Summary

Be prepared for an interview, both with examples of what you know and how you applied your knowledge. Be ready to speak to your skills, how you demonstrated them, and your emotional intelligence along with examples of how you behaved in a specific situation.

Opportunity in Adversity – Demonstrating the Value of HR in a Down Economy

As HR professionals we know that we add real value to the businesses we support. In some cases, we know that line managers appreciate what we do. In some of our efforts we are viewed as partners. However, there are other cases when the line manager works with us because they believe they need to. But, they would bypass us if they could.

There are ways in which we can improve our image so that line managers see us as true partners working together to achieve business results. A down economy might just be the perfect opportunity for us to demonstrate the contributions we can make. Below are some ways to showcase our value.

1. Career Planning

There are likely some HR activities, which have been postponed or cancelled because of the down economy. This opens up time to investigate current business activities for areas where the HR team can be of assistance. Even if nothing has been removed, and even if there are fewer people on the team, this is an opportunity that should not be wasted.

Now is when the line manager may be more receptive to a well conceived and presented collaborative activity. For example, this may be an ideal time to offer an Individual Development Plan (IDP) workshop to upper level managers who do not have development plans in place. A half-day workshop with directions and feedback for developing their own plans might be appreciated. This can demonstrate the value we bring to them individually, and by extension, to their entire organization. Offering the workshop to upper level managers, without cost if need be, can demonstrate the value of HR. Once the manager has seen the value of the workshop, they may be willing to pay to develop members of their team. They may agree that “down turn time” is an opportunity to develop and maintain their teams.

2. Surveys

What services do you provide to the businesses? Are all your offerings being subscribed to effectively? Are there additional offerings or services that your HR team could make available? Organizational development activities might find receptive audiences as the businesses seek to find new ways to promote business. Sometimes a quick and simple electronic survey will uncover needs that might not be evident from day-to-day interactions.

When developing a survey, develop a mix of item types. Include multiple-choice, check all that apply, ranking, or other fixed response choice selections and just a few open-ended questions. Also, many people will only respond to questions that provide response choices. Open-ended questions require more time and effort to analyze. Keep the survey short with no more than 10 questions in total; with no more than 3 open ended items.

In developing your survey, think about the type of issues you are seeing, the type of services you can offer, and also look at the larger picture. The larger picture can be found in news reports, business publications and in speaking to colleagues, friends and relatives about issues and opportunities they are seeing.

There are several excellent and free survey tools that you can use. Survey Monkey is one that has a good reputation, as does Zoomerang. Both of these tools are available on-line for free. The tool you choose is secondary to determining what end result you want to achieve. Know what questions you want to ask before you develop the survey. Having data without a goal is not likely to result in meaningful results.

Also, you don’t want to collect data that doesn’t relate to what your organization can offer. Develop questions that relate to tools and services you can deliver. For example, your team may want to help the organization develop mentors. You would develop one or more questions about a mentoring program. You might want to ask which of several types of mentoring programs the respondent would be most likely to participate in. What would encourage them to participate in one, discourage them, etc?

3. Workforce Development / Focus Groups

If your organization has downsized, it might be an opportunity to help the organization effectively develop and deploy the remaining resources. You might offer to facilitate focus groups. The focus groups would help work groups identify their business goals, the organizational capabilities, and the steps needed to achieve goals. Setting up focus groups with representatives from senior levels and individual contributors should provide a view of organizational capabilities and needs. Start by gaining consensus on what the overarching goals are. Then, as a team, determine what needs to be done to achieve those goals. Next, identify the areas of expertise that exist within the group. Finally, identify areas where development might be needed for the organization to achieve its goals. Help the team to identify appropriate development activities.

4. Teamwork

Now, perhaps more than ever is a time when groups and organizations need to look at ways to work together towards common goals. Silos and hording key talent will not help turn an organization around. Getting the organization to stability and greater profitability may require a unified approach. It may be advantageous to set up a committee composed of key talent to address a set of specific issues and opportunities that impact the overall business.

Bringing together key thinkers and high potential members of several organizations to address problems and recommend steps for action might benefit all the organizations that participate. This is an activity that the HR team could lead. Beginning, perhaps, by inviting organizations to participate in a task force. This won’t be an easy “sell” but it might be worth the effort.

One potential way would be to let the head of the organization know that just a few groups have been selected to participate. You can explain that, by accepting the invitation, they are committing to identify a high potential member (HiPo) of the organization to participate. You can explain the value of the effort and offer to meet with them to explain the benefit to their organization. Let them know that having a group of HiPos address issues and opportunities often leads to successful results. Additional topics are also often discussed and plans are put in place to address them. Also, the HiPos will likely keep in touch with each other and share their expertise in the future.

A key task at hand is to help organizations understand that breaking down silos will benefit them even if a key resource moves to a different role. It may even be advantageous to have HiPos rotate from one organization to another. Sharing knowledge within a company is always better than maintaining silos.

“A report by Industry Week noted that silos are the biggest hindrance to corporate growth. Another study by the American Management Association revealed that 83 per cent of executives said silos existed in their firms. Of these, 97 per cent believed silos were counterproductive.
The silo mentality can lead to a number of serious communication issues. Managers may be overprotective of their department’s activities, even going so far as to act as gatekeepers of information that impacts the rest of the organization. Internally, this lack of co-operation can cause internal competition and even a complete breakdown in communication.”

Shared information helps firms dismantle their ‘silos’, Written by Dr. John McFerran; Saturday, 04 April 2009
Summary

A down economy is an opportunity to forge greater connects to the line organizations you support. It is a time when activities and program put in place can result in a win for both the line and the HR organization.